Hate Crime on UC’s Campus

17032009

Buried in an email promoting the HRC (really? really? you use this as a fundraising piece — regardless, that bit has been eliminated from my quote here), news on a hate crime as yet unreported by any of the major stations:

While doing cardio at the gym – I caught a glimpse of a news story about a hate crime that happened here in Cincinnati just a couple days ago – a young gay man was beaten near the University of Cincinnati campus. The story talked about the court appearance of the assailant. As a victim of a hate crime myself – I was outraged that this was the first thing Id heard about the beating. I was even more upset that there is NOTHING on the channel 5 website or other stations for that matter – about the attack. The only thing I could find out by calling channel 5 was that the attackers name was (allegedly — QC.com) Ethan Kirkwood (not to be confused with Kirkland that we’ve heard about that is the alleged attacker of little Esme – the 13 year old girl that was attacked).

I’m sure you, too, can google the alleged attacker’s name and find much the same information that I did. I put Cody on the story to find out more information about the story.

Unfortunately, no news that we could find. I even did my own search. Does anyone have any information?

You know, there were hate crimes at Miami. I can remember two or three very clearly, never reported on, never had anything we could do. MU would quietly release a “we’re sorry this happened” email to the queer groups, and that’s what we had to expect. This says two things to me: hate crimes don’t register on the local news circuit (one), and (two) Cincinnati doesn’t give a shit about Butler County. Which is why it’s funny when people tell me that we have to let Butler County deal with Butler County and not those of us from the big city, when we asked for years for people to be interested in Oxford. In something. But, that’s just me, and, as we all know, I’m rarely right about these things.

3 responses

Feel free to bump any or all of this to the body of your post. No need to attribute (I’d have emailed you, but couldn’t find the address).

From the filings with the Clerk of Courts, it looks like there’s two defendants, Ethan Kirkwood, 19, and Matthew Kafagolis, 20. Also looks like there’s two alleged victims–let’s call them V1 and V2.

V1 says that Kirkwood and Kafagolis “cause[d] or attempt[ed] to cause serious physical harm” to V1 “by kicking and punching him and using slurs against homosexuals.” Further, “Victim states that above began assaulting him when it was discovered he was a homosexual by knocking him to the ground and punching and kicking him while calling him a faggot and gay.” V2 says that the two defendants assaulted him when he attempted to defend his friend “who was being assaulted for being a homosexual.”

Both defendants are charged with felonious assault. That’s a second-degree felony; each count carries 2 to 8 years in prison. Both are released on bond (5000 straight for Kirkwood, 10000 at 10% for the other). It looks like neither was arrested at the time of the incident, but were arrested separately a few days later (and not on the same day as each other).

The grand jury report date (the date by which the prosecutor should present the case to a grand jury) is March 20 for Ethan.

Because it was a crime that happened on or near campus, all UC students got this email:

“Date: Wed 18 Mar 16:13:06 EDT 2009

To: UC Community

From: Karen Patterson Captain UC Police Department

Cincinnati Police have reported two felonious assaults that occurred on March 6, 2009 at 4:20am in the 2500 block of Clifton Avenue.

The victims were walking home when one of the victims stopped to talk to the suspects, who were friends from high school. Upon hearing that the other victim was a homosexual, the suspects became aggressive and attacked both individuals.

The victims were able to provide the police with the names of several of the suspects in the case. All three suspects were white males with two being described as 18 to 20 years old, 5’10”, between 150 and 160 lbs, with brown hair and green eyes.

Featured Blogroll

GayHealthBlog.comMind Body Soul
Since 2000, gayhealth.com has been the online pioneer in bringing essential health and wellness information to the LGBT community in a safe, responsible and plain talking way. It’s been a safe haven for thousands of people who need access to the most cutting edge, up to date health and wellness information in a safe, anonymous forum.